I thought the war in Iraq was started because Bush said they had weapons of mass destruction, I don't remember him ever saying they had suicide bombers, lets go get em!
They did have them, remember the Kurds?
Iranian Gas Victims from Iraq war
Nerve agent
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This article is about the chemical. For the band, see
The Nerve Agents.
Nerve agents (also being referred to as
nerve gases, though these chemicals are liquid at room temperature) are a class of
phosphorus-containing
organic chemicals (
organophosphates) that disrupt the mechanism by which nerves transfer messages to organs. The disruption is caused by blocking
acetylcholinesterase, an
enzyme that normally relaxes the activity of
acetylcholine, a
neurotransmitter.
As
chemical weapons, they are classified as
weapons of mass destruction by the
United Nations according to
UN Resolution 687, and their production and stockpiling was outlawed by the
Chemical Weapons Convention of
1993; the Chemical Weapons Convention officially took effect on
April 29,
1997.
Poisoning by a nerve agent leads to contraction of pupils, profuse salivation, convulsions, involuntary urination
This article forms part of the series
Chemical warfare(A subset of Weapons of mass destruction)Lethal agents
Blood agentsCyanogen chloride (CK)
Hydrogen cyanide (AC)
Blister agentsLewisite (L)
Sulfur mustard gas (HD, H, HT, HL, HQ)
Nitrogen mustard gas (HN1, HN2, HN3)
Nerve agentsG-Agents
Tabun (GA),
Sarin (GB)
Soman (GD),
Cyclosarin (GF)
GV
V-Agents
VE,
VG,
VM,
VXNovichok agentsPulmonary agentsChlorineChloropicrin (PS)
Phosgene (CG)
Diphosgene (DP)
Incapacitating agentsAgent 15 (BZ)
Kolokol-1Riot control agentsPepper spray (OC)
CS gasCN gas (mace)
CR gas This box:
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and defecation, and eventual death by asphyxiation as control is lost over respiratory muscles. Some nerve agents are readily vaporized or aerosolized and the primary portal of entry into the body is the respiratory system. Nerve agents can also be absorbed through the skin, requiring that those likely to be subjected to such agents wear a full body suit in addition to a
respirator.
Contents
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[edit] Biological effects
As their name suggests, nerve agents attack the
nervous system of the human body. All such agents function the same way: by interrupting the breakdown of the
neurotransmitters that signal muscles to contract, preventing them from relaxing.
Initial symptoms following exposure to
sarin (and other nerve agents) are a runny nose, tightness in the chest and constriction of the pupils. Soon after, the victim will then have difficulty breathing, and will experience nausea and drooling. As the victim continues to lose control of his or her bodily functions, he or she will involuntarily salivate,
lacrimate, urinate, defecate, and experience gastrointestinal pain and
emesis. This phase is followed by twitching and jerking, and ultimately the victim will become comatose and suffocate as a consequence of convulsive spasms.
The effects of nerve agents are very long lasting and cumulative (increased successive exposures), and survivors of nerve agent poisoning almost invariably suffer chronic neurological damage.[
dubious – discuss]
[edit] Mechanism of action
When a normally functioning
motor nerve is stimulated it releases the
neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which transmits the impulse to a muscle or organ. Once the impulse is sent, the enzyme
acetylcholine esterase immediately breaks down the acetylcholine in order to allow the muscle or organ to relax.
Nerve agents disrupt the nervous system by inhibiting the
enzyme acetylcholine esterase by forming a
covalent bond with the site of the enzyme where
acetylcholine normally undergoes
hydrolysis (breaks down). The result is that acetylcholine builds up and continues to act so that any nerve impulses are continually transmitted, and muscle contractions do not stop.
This same action also occurs at the gland and organ levels, resulting in uncontrolled drooling, tearing of the eyes (lacrimation), and excess production of mucous from the nose (
rhinorrhea).
[edit] Antidotes
Atropine and related
anticholinergic drugs act as antidotes to nerve agent poisoning because they block acetylcholine receptors, but they are poisonous in their own right. (Some synthetic anticholinergics, such as
biperiden may counteract the central symptoms of nerve agent poisoning better than
atropine, since they pass the blood-brain barrier better than atropine.) While these drugs will save the life of a person affected with nerve agents, that person may be incapacitated briefly or for an extended period, depending on the amount of exposure. The endpoint of atropine administration is the clearing of bronchial secretions. Atropine for field use by military personnel is often loaded in an
autoinjector, for ease of use in stressful conditions.
Pralidoxime chloride, also known as
2-PAM chloride, is also used as an antidote. Rather than counteracting the initial effects of the nerve agent on the nervous system like
atropine,
pralidoxime chloride reactivates the poisoned enzyme (acetylcholinesterase) by scavenging the phosphoryl rest attached on the functional hydroxyl group of the enzyme. Though safer to use, it takes longer to act.
Recent scientific breakthroughs have seen antidotes being produced in the milk of genetically modified goats.
[1]
[edit] Classes
There are two main classes of nerve agents. The members of the two classes share similar properties, and are given both a common name (such as
sarin), and a two-character
NATO identifier (such as GB).
[edit] G-Series
The
G-series is thus named because
German scientists first synthesized them. All of the compounds in this class were discovered and synthesized during or soon after World War II, led by Dr.
Gerhard Schrader (later under the employment of
I.G. Farben).
This series is the first and oldest family of nerve agents. The first nerve agent ever synthesised was GA (
tabun) in
1936. GB (
sarin) was discovered next in
1938, followed by GD (
soman) in
1944 and finally the more obscure GF (
cyclosarin) in
1949. GB was the only G agent that was fielded by the USA as a munition, specifically in rockets, aerial bombs, howitzer rounds, and gun rounds
[2].
[edit] V-Series
Dr. Ranajit Ghosh, a chemist at the Plant Protection Laboratories of
Imperial Chemical Industries was investigating a class of organophosphate compounds (organophosphate esters of substituted aminoethanethiols). Like the earlier investigator of organophosphate, Dr. Schrader, Dr. Ghosh found that they were quite effective pesticides. In 1954, ICI put one of them on the market under the trade name Amiton. It was subsequently withdrawn, as it was too toxic for safe use. The toxicity did not go unnoticed, and some of the more toxic materials had in fact been sent to the British Armed Forces research facility at Porton Down for evaluation. After the evaluation was complete, several members of this class of compounds would become a new group of nerve agents, the V agents (depending on who you talk to, the V stands for Victory, Venomous, or Viscous). The best known of these is probably VX, with the Russian V-gas coming a close second (Amiton is largely forgotten as VG). This class of compounds is also sometimes known as Tammelin's esters, after Lars-Erik Tammelin of the Swedish Institute of Defense Research. Dr. Tammelin was also conducting research on this class of compounds in 1952, but for obvious reasons he did not publicize his work widely.
The
V-series is the second family of nerve agents, and also contains four members:
VE,
VG,
VM,
VX. The most studied agent in this family,
VX, was invented in the
1950s at
Porton Down in the
United Kingdom. The other agents in this series have not been studied extensively, and information about them is limited. It is known, however, that the V-series agents are about 10 times more toxic than the G-agent
sarin (GB).
All of the V-agents are
persistent agents, meaning that these agents do not degrade or wash away easily, and can therefore remain on clothes and other surfaces for long periods. In use, this allows the V-agents to be used to blanket terrain to guide or curtail the movement of enemy ground forces. The consistency of these agents is similar to oil; as a result, the contact hazard for V-agents is primarily - but not exclusively - dermal. VX was the only V-series agent that was fielded by the USA as a munition, consisting of rockets,
artillery shells, airplane spray tanks, and landmines.
[2][3]
